Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door. His name, as I ought to have told you before, Is really Asparagus. That's such a fuss To pronounce, that we usually call him just Gus. His coat's very shabby, he's thin as a rake, And he suffers from palsy that makes his paw shake. Yet he was, in his youth, quite the smartest of Cats — But no longer a terror to mice or to rats. For he isn't the Cat that he was in his prime; Though his name was quite famous, he says, in his time. And whenever he joins his friends at their club (which takes place at the back of the neighbouring pub) He loves to regale them, if someone else pays, With anecdotes drawn from his palmiest days. For he once was a Star of the highest degree — He has acted with Irving, he's acted with Tree. And he likes to relate his success on the Halls, Where the Gallery once gave him seven cat-calls. But his grandest creation, as he loves to tell, Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.
T.S. Eliot
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More T.S. Eliot
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ELIOT At the first turning of the second stair / I turned and saw below / The same shape twisted on the ba... T.S. ELIOT The dove descending breaks the air / With flame of incandescent terror. T.S. ELIOT People to whom nothing has ever happened cannot understand the unimportance of events. T.S. ELIOT Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mea... T.S. ELIOT If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it ... T.S. ELIOT But above and beyond there's still one name left over, And that is the name that you never will... T.S. ELIOT He's outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.) And his footprints are not found in ... T.S. ELIOT With Cats, some say, one rule is true: Don’t speak till you are spoken to. Myself, I do ... T.S. ELIOT Before a Cat will condescend To treat you as a trusted friend, Some little token of esteem... T.S. ELIOT The Pekes and the Pollicles, everyone knows, Are proud and implacable, passionate foes; I... T.S. ELIOT The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, It isn't just one of your holiday games; You may... T.S. ELIOT The communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living. T.S. ELIOT And we must think no further of you. T.S. ELIOT We are being made aware that the organization of society on the principle of private profit, as well... T.S. ELIOT The dripping blood our only drink, The bloody flesh our only food: In spite of which we li... T.S. ELIOT Unreal City, / Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, / A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, /... T.S. ELIOT If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent If the unheard, unspoken Word is unsp... T.S. ELIOT For he will do As he do do And there's no doing anything about it! T.S. ELIOT To country people Cows are mild, And flee from any stick they throw; But I’m a timid tow... T.S. 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ELIOT The majority of poems one outgrows and outlives, as one outgrows and outlives the majority of human ... T.S. ELIOT My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measu... T.S. ELIOT Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world. T.S. ELIOT The bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to ... T.S. ELIOT A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections. T.S. ELIOT All cases are unique and very similar to others. T.S. ELIOT We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and ... T.S. ELIOT When lovely woman stoops to folly and / Paces about her room again, alone, / She smoothes her hair w... T.S. ELIOT The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the windowpanes. T.S. ELIOT We do not quite say that the new is more valuable because it fits in; but its fitting in is a test o... T.S. ELIOT Human kind cannot bear much reality. T.S. ELIOT If you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest cup of scorn and hatred that a fellow human being ca... T.S. ELIOT In the vain laughter of folly, wisdom hears half its applause. T.S. ELIOT To hear the latest Pole / transmit the Preludes, through his hair and fingertips. T.S. ELIOT Friendship should be more than biting time can sever. T.S. ELIOT That corpse you planted last year in your garden, / Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? T.S. ELIOT Whatever you do, don't whimper, but take the consequences. T.S. ELIOT No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence. T.S. ELIOT Only by acceptance of the past, can you alter it. T.S. ELIOT I said to my soul be still, and wait without hope; for hope would be hope of the wrong thing; wait w... T.S. ELIOT When a Cat adopts you there is nothing to be done about it except put up with it until the wind chan... T.S. ELIOT The highest form of treason: to do the right thing for the wrong reason. Murder in the Cathedral T.S. ELIOT Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important. T.S. ELIOT Webster was much possessed by death / And saw the skull beneath the skin. T.S. ELIOT I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is fa... T.S. ELIOT The Nobel is a ticket to one's own funeral. No one has ever done anything after he got it. T.S. ELIOT There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music. T.S. ELIOT When one wanted one's interests looking after whatever the cost, it was not so well for a lawyer to ... T.S. ELIOT For I have known them all already, known them all— Have known the evenings, mornings, afterno... T.S. ELIOT Do I dare Disturb the universe? T.S. ELIOT We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with s... T.S. ELIOT Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? T.S. ELIOT There is shadow under this red rock // (Come in under the shadow of this red rock) // And I will sho... T.S. ELIOT Someone said, 'The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.' Prec... T.S. ELIOT We understand the ordinary business of living, We know how to work the machine T.S. ELIOT Oxford is very pretty, but I don't like to be dead. T.S. ELIOT It is certain that a book is not harmless merely because no one is consciously offended by it. T.S. ELIOT We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during wh... T.S. ELIOT